Feature

Reintroducing Metropolitan Home Magazine

By Hearstlink EditorsPublished on 04.07.16

Metropolitan Home is returning to newsstands this month with a unique
look at home design for Gen X and millennial city dwellers with modern style.
Editor-in-Chief and Hearst Design Group Editorial Director Newell Turner shares
more about the relaunch and what readers can expect from the first issue.

Can you tell me a little bit about the history of Metropolitan Home?
Who is the target readership?

Newell Turner: The original Metropolitan Home grew out of a magazine
called Apartment Life that was
published in the 70s. In the early 80s, the magazine evolved with its Baby
Boomer readership into Metropolitan Home
and was in print until 2009. Last year, we recognized an opportunity to create
a magazine for a new audience that is becoming more and more interested in home
and design—Gen X and first wave millennials. We also saw an opening for a
magazine with an exclusive focus on city living and contemporary style.

How will the redesigned product be different from its predecessor?

Turner: We went back to the
brand’s DNA to fashion a new magazine for a new generation. For example,
features in Met Home are more about
design than Decorating (with that frivolous but intimidating capital D). Today
there is so much more access to great design. We believe an informed consumer
is the best consumer, whether they're shopping for themselves or working with a
professional.

The new Met Home replaces occasional, lengthy interviews with quick,
actionable profiles on thought leaders, movers and makers doing exciting things
in everything from product design and fashion to architecture, real estate, the
food scene and more.

Some concepts, like the original title Apartment Life, still have a powerful
ring of appeal, but we’ve turned Apartment
Life into a column exclusively about small spaces. And we’ve transformed
what used to be a column called “Object Lesson” into a profile on a specific
piece or type of furniture combined with get-it-now shopping details.

What can readers look forward to in the first issue?

Turner: A magazine rich
with design and lifestyle inspiration and beautiful apartments and houses, but
it’s not a typical decorating magazine. The stories are very personal and capture
an individual’s passion.

Can you tell me about the team you have working on Metropolitan Home? How will contributors
play a role?

Turner: This first issue of
Metropolitan Home is called a pilot
issue, meaning we’ve produced a single issue to gauge consumer demand and advertiser
interest, which will then be measured by newsstand sales and response to reader
surveys.

The Hearst Design Group team, which
includes ELLE DECOR, House Beautiful and VERANDA, is very good at and open to
trying new things. There were about several of us in the group working directly
on the project, but the shared departments, including features/copy,
photography and our managing editors, were completely involved in the
production process. In addition to our staff, we had two outside contributors
and a handful of new photographers and writers producing content. After we
gauge consumer interest, we’ll start making decisions on possible frequency.
But, we’ll always be a tight, highly creative team.

Newell Turner is the editorial director of the Hearst Design Group.

How did you select the 14 cities in which to debut the pilot issue?

Turner: Metropolitan Home had a long
tradition of working with contributors based in cities around the country who
fed ideas to the New York-based editorial team. This original scouting network
inspired us to focus initially on those key cities, but there are many more
cities across the country with contemporary-oriented consumers that will be
great places for this magazine. In the pilot issue, we've already tapped into
some of them in cities like Detroit and Cleveland, for example.

How are you targeting current Hearst subscribers with this new launch?

Turner: We're building a
readership base from scratch, so in addition to select newsstand distribution,
we’re mailing the magazine to targeted consumers we’ve pulled from various
Hearst databases. We’re reaching an audience that fits our demographic
sweet-spot: readers 28 to 40 years old who live in major American cities and
have a household income of $150,000 or more. But, we will definitely have
interested readers of varying ages living in cities of all sizes.

Tell me more about Partnership, the new type of integrated story
making its debut in Metropolitan Home.

Turner: Partnership is our
evolution of what’s traditionally been called advertorial, sponsored and even
native content. Historically, advertorial content was a collaboration between
an advertiser and a magazines sales/marketing team. Today, editors are actively
collaborating with select advertisers to create branded content that adds to
the value of the magazine and the experience for readers.

In our pilot issue we have two
partnership programs, with Crate and Barrel and Design Within Reach. The
features are clearly labeled as a Partnership, and the end result of both of
these programs is more interesting and engaging content for our readers. Our
role as good editors is to make sure that we’re always delivering important,
exciting and honest information for our consumer, and our Partnership program
is no different.

Can you tell me about Metropolitan
Home’s integration with Shazam?

Turner: People today consume
content on multiple devices even at the same time. There's nothing unusual
about someone reading a magazine while watching TV with a mobile device within
reach, if not in hand. Shazam enables our readers to scan a selection of our
printed images for additional, supplemental content on their mobile devices.
It’s an extension of the traditional magazine experience and expanded
storytelling. There’s a huge opportunity for us to engage with readers through
integrations like this and we are only just beginning to tap into the creative
and engaging possibilities for this 360 virtual reality model.

What are your plans to connect with readers online and on social
media?

Turner: We have launched Metropolitanhome.com, and the magazine is now live on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. We’re using these
platforms to start conversations with our readers, share posts and imagery, and
let readers know that Metropolitan Home
is on newsstands and direct them to stores that sell copies close to their
homes.